Reports coming in post the Uncovered Final Fantasy XV events have suggested that Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata said that the game has to sell 10 million units in order to recoup the over-a-decade-long investment Square Enix has poured into it. Square Enix didn’t quite like that, however, and has retracted Tabata’s statement.
Here’s the full statement by Square Enix:
We’d like to make a comment on the news reports that state Hajime Tabata, Director of FINAL FANTASY XV, commented that FINAL FANTASY XV needed to sell 10 million copies to recoup the investment at the press conference held yesterday in LA.
We believe there was a communication problem during the conference. In fact, Tabata was referencing 10 million copies only as a high goal which the development team set to realize their ambition to make the ultimate FINAL FANTASY game. And the comment was never meant to be referred as a recoup line of the investment.
The project that became Final Fantasy XV was original revealed all the way back in 2006 as Final Fantasy Versus XIII, essentially an “alternate” take on Final Fantasy XIII. While its predecessor Final Fantasy XIII released worldwide in 2010, Versus XIII remained out of action until it final appeared under its new name at E3 2013.
While Square Enix has not mentioned any numbers, and is unlikely to, it seems fairly safe to say that the game might be the company’s most expensive video game project yet, and recouping costs might be a real concern. Whether or not Final Fantasy XV can do it will have to be seen after the game launched on September 30th for the PS4 and Xbox One.